YOUNG JUSTICE INVASION: ENDGAME Review

The Post-Coital Cuddle.

By Johnny Destructo
March 19, 2013Source: Mania.com

"Is there nothing MORE you would like to *clears throat* …offer The Tribunal, before we reach a verdict?"

I picked up the weirdness of this as I watched it the first time, but it's true purpose didn't occur to me until I just re-watched it! The dudes want MONEY. You mean to tell me that all of these could have been circumnavigated and the Justice League could have been back on Earth months ago, if they just put forth a little Scratch? C'est la vie.

Welp, they are found guilty, just in time for Miss Martian, Adam Strange and Superboy to arrive with The Reach's confession! Oh, wait. That's bad. But, long story short, the grubby tribunal reconvenes and is eventually talked into finding the JL innocent of all charges. Not through greasing the wheels monetarily, but by convincing them that by doing the right thing, more cases would come before them and more "offerings" would be in their future.

Meanwhile, Black Beetle and the Reach Scientist are attacked by Green Beetle, Blue Beetle and Aqualad. Green Beetle tries to reset Black's Scarab, but instead has his own Scarab busticated. Blue steps in and it's revealed that at long last, Jaime and his Scarab are "hermanos" and working in unison! They take down Black together and Blue's story arc sees a fitting end. However, it is revealed that there are MFD's (Magnetic Field Disruptors) positioned all over the world, set to destroy our planet if The Team doesn't stop them. And herein lies one of two complaints about this otherwise awesomotronic episode. This series finale centers around the characters running around turning off little machines. The depth of plot puts it squarely on par with something like The Super-Friends cartoon, which is a little disappointing.

Fear not, since the plot of this episode isn't what's worth discussing, it's the in-between scenes and the after-math. Superboy reveals that he isn't going out with Wendy, but is instead providing a "buffer" between her and Marvin, allowing Miss Martian and Superboy to get together.

La'gaan and Aqualad put their differences aside and are buddies once more.

Kid Flash (Wally) and Artemis have some quality time (kind of) taking out the MFD in Paris, promising that they come back after their work is done. Also: smootches.

Black Lightning teams up with Static and offers to mentor him moving forward.

Every MFD is taken down, with the exception of one they didn't know about, up in Antartica, which The Flash (Barry Allen) and Impulse (Bart Allen) try to take down alone, by running counter to it's energy flow. It slows the flow, but doesn't stop it. Thankfully Kid Flash shows up and adds his (albeit slower) speed to theirs. However, those who remember the Crisis On Infinite Earths knows where this is headed…but with which Flash?

If you don't want to know the SPOILERS, then you should probably stop reading because there are SPOILERS and this is your ALERT to said SPOILERS.

So, we know one of the Flash Family is going to bite it, but which one? In the original Crisis, it was Barry Allen, the second Flash (after Jay Garrick) that saved the world and wound up disappearing into what would later be called The Speed Force. This time, it's Wally, the Flash I grew up with. But it's not all that surprising, considering of the three, Young Justice has mostly been about Wally growing up. Also, last episode, they foreshadowed this event by having Wally saying that he would pass on the Kid Flash mantle to Bart when this was all over, so he wasn't going to be around anyway. Last but not least, right now Wally doesn't exist in the DC Universe anyway. Barry is The Flash (ugh) and Bart is Kid Flash, so it would stand to reason that having Wally in an animated version would just serve to confuse people trying to make the jump from T.V. to Comic Book.

Now, despite all of the reasons I've just listed for you, the second problem I had with this episode was that it seemed like Wally died for no reason! It just felt like he died because the writers needed something dramatic to happen in this episode, and they had too many Flashes running around and needed to get rid of one. I know that it was planned since the beginning of the season, but the way it was handled in this episode made it feel like an afterthought. I don't know, maybe I'm not making much sense, maybe I'm just bummed that my favorite character died stopping a machine. What do you think?

Anyway, despite Kid F not making it, they saved the world.

The Justice League finally teleport back home, to find Mount Justice 'sploded, but are met by YJ to let them know that the "Crisis has passed, but at a terrible cost."

It's the wordless scene where Artemis shows up at the West's household that finally gets me all choked up.

The Reach are escorted off of Earth to face trial at OA by The Guardians of The Universe, and Lex Luthor reveals his bid for U.N. Secretary General. Captain Atom steps down from his Charimanship for The League and gives his place to Black Canary. Nightwing takes a leave of absence from The Team, allowing Batgirl to take his place. Impulse takes over as Kid Flash and Artemis ditches her former identity in favor of being Tigress full time (but this time as a Blonde).

Let's see..what else? Static joins The Team, Robin and Wonder Girl are now an item..and The Justice League the STILL un-named The Team will both be headquartered up in The Watchtower.

Everyone is sent out on their new missions, and Vandal Savage Boom Tubes up to Apocolypse to make plans with Darkseid, leading all us faithful followers directly and excitedly into Season 3 of the show. WHICH ISN'T HAPPENING!!! Blaarrggghpaogihaspoghabnsdkfnasd!!!! It so perfectly links to the next season that I had to check to make sure it wasn't saved and picked up for another round. Much to my chagrin, it is still cancelled. Let's hope that changes soon.

Some of the cool:

Aqualad: "You are alone.."

Black Beetle: "I am sufficient."

The move where Kid Flash catches Artemis and is running with her as she fires arrows upside-down. Bad-ass.

Some of the not-so cool:

Did anyone else notice that the establishing shot of Gotham City looks waaay too much like Metropolis? It's nice and clean and bright. Way too happy looking for GC.

Seriously? That's the big wrap-up for our heroes…hidden bombs?

The wrap-up:

The finest two seasons of animated programming I've had the pleasure of experiencing. Seriously the best.

Join me here on Mania.com when Teen Titans Go! premieres, since I'll be reviewing that show as well. It's got some BIG time-slot shoes to fill. Let's hope we are more then whelmed.

COMMENTS AND RESPONSES

A good end to a fantastic series. I agree that dismantling hidden bombs was a bit of a letdown as a series finale (although it wasn't written as a series finale, I'd like to think). But it could have been worse. The whole of season two could have been a holographic simulated training exercise (think St. Elsewhere ... or Dallas).

Direct to video would be swell, I'd take that. I signed a petition, I took the survey and I'll buy the seasons when they come out on DVD...not to mention spreading the word with these reviews. I've done all I can, dammit!

So, when I watched it, they still had the ending that said stay tuned for new GL & YJ next week. Was this just a mistake on Cartoon Network's part? I'm guessing it was. They could have changed the bumper so people wouldn't have false hope.

My condolences, Johnny. Sorry to hear that you have to review Teen Titans Go. I'm not going anywhere near that tv show, even if Mania paid me to. Though I'm sure I will check out your reviews.

This finale was very frustrating to me. The plot with the MFDs (which I'm sure we all have our own interpretation of that acrynym) was lame. The small moments were great, as was mentioned. However, the most frustrating part was that we get to see a glimpse of where the next season was headed and how awesome it would have been with Darkseid! Those Cartoon Network execs are evil.

Hope this series somehow is resurrected, but I'll be surprised if it does. In any event it was a fun ride!

Like millean said we saw a glimpse of how the next season was going to go and they left us with showing Darseid? WTF!!! It looks like season 3 would have been even better than 2. You would think that with Cartoon Network loosing Clone Wars they would want to keep this great show. I'll check out the new Batman cartoon but as much as I liked the original Teen Titans this new show looks like a joke.

Chances are the Tribunal would want something worth something unlike cash which would be worthless to them. So even IF the Justice League wanted to bribe them chances are they had nothing of value to give them.